Congressman reaches out to Colombia rebels

In quest to free hostages held for years, Democrat eager to negotiate

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, January 20, 2008

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — In an effort to free dozens of rebel-held hostages, a U.S. congressman has reached out to Colombia's guerrillas, offering to meet with their leaders deep in the Amazon jungle.

"This is a tragic humanitarian crisis," Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said in an interview during a trip to Colombia last week. "We can't just blow it off just because (the solution) involves talking to the bad guys."

McGovern's overture is the latest in a dizzying series of developments in the saga of Colombia's hostages. Although it's unclear where any of it will lead, relatives of more than 40 so-called high-value hostages — including politicians, army officers and three Americans — sense an opening for the first time in years.

Strain on leadership

Last week, two women held for more than five years were released. Then proof-of-life letters describing horrendous living conditions were delivered to the relatives of eight other captives. The publicity added to a growing outcry at home and abroad that ratcheted up pressure on the Bogota government, which has refused to yield to rebel conditions for negotiations. The guerrillas, however, have been confronted with problems, too. Embarrassing blunders have exposed the strains among their leadership of holding so many hostages for so long.

"We're delighted that the two ladies were released," said Lynne Stansell, the mother of Keith Stansell, one of three American military contractors kidnapped by the guerrillas five years ago. "It gives us hope."

McGovern, who has specialized in Latin American affairs and has been in contact with several hostage families for a year, offered to meet with leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, under two conditions: the Colombian government would have to approve the meeting and the rebels would have to agree to release more hostages. FARC commanders, in turn, crave contact with foreign officials in their quest to gain political legitimacy after being blacklisted by Washington and the European Union as a terrorist group.

"It's not for a photo opportunity or a press conference but for something tangible," McGovern said, "If something good can happen from this, it's worth it."

Waiting for response

So far, McGovern, who met with the families and senior U.S. and Colombian officials in Bogota last week before returning to Washington, has not received a response from the FARC.

For years, there was little good news for the hostages, and their families complained that the world had forgotten them. According to Free Country, a Colombian group that assists the families of kidnapping victims, the FARC holds more than 700 hostages.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has pledged to crush the FARC on the battlefield and says that ceding to rebel demands would breath new life into their four-decade-old movement. His hard-line policies have been enormously popular, and analysts say that the president and many Colombians view the suffering of the hostages as an inevitable cost of war.

But Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's socialist president who is deeply admired by the FARC, broke the stalemate last October by offering his services as a mediator. Since then, the FARC has produced proof-of-life documents for more than a dozen hostages, including videos of the three Americans who were captured after their plane crash-landed during an anti-drug mission. Last week, the FARC released the two politicians, the rebels' first unilateral hostage release in six years, and Venezuelan and Colombian media reported that the FARC may soon release one of the Americans.

International involvement

Farther afield, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy
has been a vocal advocate for
Ingrid Betancourt
, a dual French-Colombian citizen who was kidnapped by the FARC while campaigning for president in 2002. Spanish and Swiss diplomats have gotten involved, and McGovern and two other Democratic congressmen arrived in Bogota last week to express their support for a humanitarian accord in which hostages would be swapped for imprisoned guerrillas.

"Finally, the politicians are doing something," said Jo Rosano — the mother of Marc Gonsalves, one of the kidnapped Americans — who has met with McGovern.

Pressure also is building on the FARC.

Colombian army operations appear to have disrupted the rebel command-and-control structure to the point where rebel leaders cannot keep track of their most high-profile hostages.

Last month, the FARC pledged to release a 3-year-old boy named Emmanuel who was born in captivity to one of the recently freed hostages. But the operation fell apart when it turned out the boy was living in a Bogota foster home.

War isn't over

Still, Colombians may have to wait to witness more joyful scenes of freed hostages hugging their loved ones.

Uribe has refused to budge on the FARC's long-standing demand that he pull government troops from two rural counties near Cali in order to hold talks on a wide-ranging prisoner swap. The Colombian leader has pledged to create a smaller demilitarized zone elsewhere in the country, but the FARC has rejected that offer.

"Both sides have turned what should be a humanitarian gesture into a test of wills," said Carlos Lozano, a peace activist and editor of Voz, a weekly newspaper published by the Colombian Communist Party. "But no one will win the war if Ingrid Betancourt is released or if 500 guerrillas are let out of jail."

Another hitch is the FARC's demand that Washington turn over two guerrillas imprisoned in the United States in exchange for the three Americans.

Too optimistic?

Many analysts call a deal unlikely because of the American government's policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists.

McGovern, 48, who represents a district outside Boston, said he is optimistic, perhaps because he's been in the thick of seemingly intractable conflicts before. When he was a congressional aide in the late 1980s and early '90s, he was dispatched to El Salvador, where he dealt with crafty rebel commanders and corrupt army officials in an effort to help end that nation's civil war.

"But there's not an endless window of opportunity" for the Colombian hostages, McGovern said. "What we're trying to do is to keep the pressure on everybody."